176

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,*
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high-fantastical.

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?
Duke.

Cur. The hart.

What, Curio?

Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have.
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence!
That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me.*.

Enter VALENTINE.

How now! what news from her?
Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted;
But from her handmaid do return this answer:
The element itself, till seven years hence,7
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk,
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this, to season

A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh
And lasting in her sad remembrance.

Το

Duke. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
pay this debt of love but to a brother,

How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else

That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart,

These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd

4 Validity is worth, value. So, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act v. scene 3: "Behold this ring, whose high respect and rich validity did lack a parallel.” 5 Fancy is continually used by old writers for love. There is a play on the word here. See page 81, note 6. Also page 138, note 8.

6 Shakespeare seems to think men cautioned against too great far harity with forbidden beauty by the fable of Acteon, who saw Diana naked, and was torn to pieces by his hounds; as a man indulging his eyes or his imagination with a view of a woman he cannot gain, has his heart torn with incessant longing.

7 The original has heat instead of hence. What heat should mean in such a place it is hard to say. adopted by Dyce. Element here means the sky. So, in 2 Henry IV., iv 3: The change was first made by Rowe, and is "And I, in the clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full Moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins' heads to her;" cinders meaning, of course, the stars.

8 To season is to preserve. In All's Well that Ends Well, i. 1, tears are said to be "the best brine a maiden can season her praise in."

(Her sweet perfections) with one self king!". Away before me to sweet beds of flowers;

Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The Sea-coast.

Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors.

Vio. What country, friends, is this?

Cap.

Vio. And what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium.

This is Illyria, lady.

Perchance he is not drown'd:- What think you, sailors?
Cap. It is perchance that you yourself were sav'd.

Vio. O, my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.
Cap. True, Madam; and, to comfort you with chance,
Assure yourself, after our ship did split,

When you, and this poor number1 sav'd with you,
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,2

I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
So long as I could see.

Vio.

For saying so there's gold. Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,

9 This passage would run better for the sense, and equally well for the verse, if it were to read,

"when liver, brain, and heart,

These sovereign thrones, her sweet perfections,
Are all supplied and fill'd with one self king."

Which may give the true meaning, if it be not the right order, of the text. The marks of parenthesis, though needful as the text stands, are not in the original. Liver, brain, and heart are admitted in poetry as the residence of passions, judgment, and sentiments. Self king apparently means the same as self-same king. Accordingly the second folio reads, "with one self-same king," as if to complete the measure; but the endings tion and sion were often used as two syllables by the old poets.

1 The original has those instead of this. The change is Capell's.

2 Arion's feat is worthily celebrated in Wordsworth's great poem On the Power of Sound:

"Thy skill, Arion!

Could humanize the creatures of the sea,

Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves,

Leave for one chant; the dulcet sound

Steals from the deck o'er willing waves,

And listening dolphins gather round.
Self-cast, as with a desperate course,
'Mid that strange audience, he bestrides
A proud one docile as a managed horse
And singing, while the accordant hand
Sweeps his harp, the master rides."

Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
The like of him. Know'st thou this country?

Cap. Ay, Madam, well; for I was bred and born
Not three hours' travel from this very place.

Vio. Who governs here?

Cap. A noble Duke, in nature as in name.3
Vio. What is his name?

Cap. Orsino.

Vio. Orsino! I have heard my father name him:
He was a bachelor then.

Cap. And so is now, or was so very late:
For but a month ago I went from hence,
And then 'twas fresh in murmur, (as, you know,
What great ones do the less will prattle of,)
That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.

Vio. What's she?

Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a Count
That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her
In the protection of his son, her brother,

Who shortly also died: for whose dear loss
They say she hath abjur'd the company

And sight of men.

Vio.

O, that I serv'd that lady;

And might not be deliver'd to the world,
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is!*

Cap.

That were hard to compass;

Because she will admit no kind of suit,

No, not the Duke's.

Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain; And though that Nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close-in pollution, yet of thee

I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character.
I pr'ythee, and I'll pay thee bounteously, -
Conceal me what I am; and be my aid
For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent. I'll serve this Duke:

Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him.5

8 A covert allusion, no doubt, to the great and well-known Italian family of Orsini, from whom the name Orsino is borrowed.

4 Viola is herself a nobleman's daughter; and she here wishes that her birth and quality her estate may be kept secret from the world, till she has a ripe occasion for making known who she is. Certain later passages in the play seem to infer that she has already fallen in love with Duke Orsino from the descriptions she has had of him.

This plan of Viola's was not pursued, as it would have been inconsist ent with the plot of the play. She was presented as a page, not as an

eunuch.

It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,
And speak to him in many sorts of music,
That will allow me very worth his service.
What else may hap, to time I will commit;
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.
Čap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be;
When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see!
Vio. I thank thee: lead me on.

SCENE III. A Room in OLIVIA'S House.

Enter Sir TOBY BELCH and MARIA.

[Exeunt.

Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.

Mar. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.

Sir To. Why, let her except before excepted.1

Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

Sir To. Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am.2 These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.

Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.

Sir To. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?

Mar. Ay, he.

Sir To. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.3

Mar. What's that to the purpose?

Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.

Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats: he's

a very fool and a prodigal.

Sir To. Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gam

6 To allow is to approve. So used in the Bible; as in Romans vii. 15: "For that which I do I allow not."

7 A seeming allusion to the Sultan's Court, as if mutes and eunuchs were understood to go together there. So, in King Henry V., i. 2: "Our grave, like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth."

1 The Poet here shows his familiarity with the technical language of the Law; Sir Toby being made to run a whimsical play upon the old legal phrase, "those things being excepted which were before excepted."

2 Sir Toby purposely misunderstands confine, taking it in the sense of refine.

3 The use of tall for bold, valiant, stout, was common in Shakespeare's time, and occurs several times in his works. Sir Toby is evidently bantering with the word, Sir Andrew being equally deficient in spirit and in stature.

boys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of Nature.

Mar. He hath, indeed, all most natural: for, besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

Sir To. By this hand, they are scoundrels and substractors that say so of him. Who are they?

Mar. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your

company.

7

Sir To. With drinking healths to my niece: I'll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria. He's a coward and a coistrel that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench! Castiliano vulgo ;' for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.

Enter Sir ANDREW AGUEcheek.

Sir And. Sir Toby Belch,-how now, Sir Toby Belch! Sir To. Sweet Sir Andrew!

Sir And. Bless you, fair shrew.

Mar. And you too, sir.

Sir To. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.10

Sir And. What's that?

Sir To. My niece's chamber-maid.

Sir And. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaint

farrce.

4 Viol-de-gamboys is a Tobyism for viol da gamba, an instrument like the violoncello, and much used in the Poet's time; so called because it was held between the legs; gamba being Italian for leg.

Gust, later in the speech,

5 For this use of natural, see page 29, note 4. is "taste for quarrelling;" from the Italian gusto; not much used now, though we have its sense in disgust.

6 Another Tobyism for detractors.

7 Holinshed classes coistrels among the unwarlike followers of an army. It was thus used as a term of contempt.

8 A large top was formerly kept in each village for the peasantry to amuse themselves with in frosty weather. "He sleeps like a town-top," is an old proverb.

It is generally allowed that here is a mistake; though whether it be the printer's or Sir Toby's, is somewhat questionable. Warburton proposed volto, wherein he has generally been followed. The meaning in this case would be, put on a Castilian face;" that is, grave looks. Mr. Verplanck aptly suggests that both vulgo and volto may be right; Sir Toby using the one and meaning the other, thus blundering, as he has done a little before in using viol-de-gamboys for viol da gamba. The Knight has already said that Sir Andrew "speaks three or four languages;" and it is not unlikely that he is here rivalling his learned friend, or perhaps ridiculing him.

10 Sir Toby speaks more learnedly than intelligibly here, using accost in its original sense. The word is from the French accoster, to come side by side, or to approach. Accost is seldom used thus, which accounts for Sir Andrew's mistake.